By Donald Zuhn --
H.R. 1249 Vote Delayed by Fee Diversion Debate
On Tuesday, the Intellectual Property Owners Association (IPO) reported that the House Rules Committee meeting to determine how the floor debate on H.R. 1249 would be conducted, originally scheduled for that day, had been postponed. Today, the IPO reported that the Rules Committee would meet after the fee diversion debate has been resolved. The report also indicated that 37 amendments had been filed with the Rules Committee, and that the IPO "would strongly oppose" amendments that would strike the first-to-file and anti-fee diversion provisions from the bill.
BIO Supports Manager's Amendment
On Tuesday, Biotechnology Industry Organization (BIO) President and CEO Jim Greenwood sent a letter to House Judiciary Committee Chairman Lamar Smith (R-TX), expressing BIO's "strong support" for the Manager's Amendment to H.R. 1249 that Chairman Smith offered on Monday. Mr. Greenwood indicated that BIO had a "strong desire to see this bill, as amended, passed by the House," and would thereafter work with the Chairman "to ensure that any final product is perfected." He noted that BIO was "pleased that the Manager's Amendment to the bill has resolved many of the remaining concerns for the life sciences industry," and would "once and for all, end the diversion of fees collected by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (PTO), increase the objectivity of our patent system, and increase patent quality."
Innovation Alliance Opposes H.R. 1249 Without Anti-Fee Diversion Provisions
Last week, the Innovation Alliance released a statement indicating that the group would "vigorously oppose" H.R. 1249 if efforts to strip the anti-fee diversion provisions contained in Section 22 of the bill proved to be successful. Such efforts came to light following the release of a letter Rep. Harold Rogers (R-KY), the Chairman of the House Committee on Appropriations, and Rep. Paul Ryan (R-WI), the Chairman of the House Committee on the Budget, sent to Chairman Smith, seeking the deletion or modification of Section 22 (see "Patent Reform News Briefs," June 7, 2011). Referring to that section, the Innovation Alliance declared that "no legislative change would have greater impact on improving innovation and creating jobs in the United States than ending the possibility of fee diversion forever." The group contended that absent the funding provision, the Patent Office "would be woefully ill-equipped" to handle "the variety of new resource-intensive responsibilities and procedures the America Invents Act assigns to the USPTO." The Innovation Alliance stated that the group "would have no choice but to vigorously oppose the America Invents Act without Section 22 or other similarly effective anti-fee diversion provisions, and it would aggressively court other stakeholders likewise to oppose the bill."
150 Patent Stakeholders Support USPTO Funding Provisions of H.R 1249
On Monday, a collection of 150 patent stakeholders sent a letter to Speaker of the House John Boehner (R-AL) and House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-CA), expressing their "unified support for Section 22 of H.R. 1249, 'The America Invents Act.'" The letter's signatories included Allergan, Inc., Amylin Pharmaceuticals, Inc., BayBio, BIO, California Healthcare Institute (CHI), Cephalon, Eli Lilly and Company, Gen-Probe Inc., GlaxoSmithKline, Hoffman-La Roche Inc., Innovation Alliance, Iowa Biotech Association, Johnson & Johnson, Millennium Pharmaceuticals, National Venture Capital Association (NVCA), Neodyne Biosciences, Inc., Novartis, Novozymes, Patent Office Professional Association (POPA), Pfizer, Syngenta, Washington Biotechnology & Biomedical Association, and a number of universities.
The letter describes Section 22 as "a simple and straightforward provision that creates a mandatory revolving fund in the Treasury to consistently capture all user fees collected by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office ("USPTO") and to allow for their expenditure for no other purpose than funding the USPTO." The signatories contend that "[a]s a practical matter, the agency is raising through user fees every dollar it spends and should not be treated as an agency that is merely spending tax dollars." The letter concludes that "[a]bsent a statutory mechanism to prevent future fee diversion, as we have seen all too often in previous years, the existing and new responsibilities vested in the USPTO will suffer, the ability of the USPTO to plan long-term and build the agency our innovation economy demands will be frustrated, and the job-stifling patent application backlog will continue."
USBIC: H.R. 1249 Has "Constitutional Problems"
On Friday, the U.S. Business and Industry Council (USBIC), a 2,000-member organization of smaller manufacturers and small-entity inventors, sent a letter to House leadership requesting that H.R. 1249 not be brought to the House floor for a vote. Contending that the bill was "rife with constitutional and other serious problems," the USBIC asked Speaker of the House John Boehner (R-AL) "to derail this runaway Big Bank, Big Tech, and Big Multinational patent 'reform' locomotive before it does irreparable harm to the Constitution, legislative process, and America’s small-entity innovators, the main source of job creation in our economy." With regard to the bill's constitutional problems, the letter noted that "[i]t has long been USBIC's position that several sections of the patent legislation are unconstitutional, including Section 2, which changes the United States from its historical first-to-invent system to a European first-to-file system, Section 18, which allows a USPTO review of already issued and re-examined business-method patents, and Section 22 which delegates Congress's appropriations authority to the Executive Branch." The letter states that "[n]ow that the bill is close to final passage, Members of Congress and outside organizations are beginning to do their due diligence and are realizing that the bill flouts the Constitution." The group contends that "[t]he bill does not hang together without the unconstitutional Section 22, because it would place substantial new responsibilities on the USPTO without providing the resources to undertake them."
I feel that this bill will only favor big business and foreign companies who will steal inventions of Americans. It violates our Constitution and will be a disaster!
Posted by: Robert Inabinette | July 31, 2011 at 02:10 PM